


Close Quarters

by junkienicky



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Claustrophobia, Enemies, One Shot, Other, Power Dynamics, Tight Spaces, Trapped In A Closet, Unresolved Sexual Tension, yeah idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-02-28 12:09:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkienicky/pseuds/junkienicky
Summary: Bea and Franky find themselves in an awkward, frustrating situation.





	Close Quarters

Just ten more minutes and she could shower. Franky had been thinking about it constantly, to the point where she was almost making dumb-fuck rookie mistakes in the kitchen – even if you ignored the fact that she was the one with the most experience, and, most importantly, the one with the head chef bandana.

Working in the kitchen was the best job you could get in this skank-riddled cesspit, and good old Fergie and Vinegar Tits would’ve been utter fools to assign her anywhere else. Laundry was fine but the routine was a dull, effortless cycle. At least with cooking, you could actually put some creativity into it, no matter how cheap and nasty the produce was.

She got bored easily, though. Especially in the last hour when she’d be left to clear up everyone else’s shit (namely that of ‘Bubble Butt’ Sarah and Booms – who was, at this point, definitely leaving it there on purpose out of spite. Whatever. Franky couldn’t blame her).

With a low sigh, she collected a stack of chopping boards and placed them under the workstation until she noticed something peculiar. A potato peeler by the sink had been damaged to the point where the blade was completely misplaced. A fucking shiv it could be assembled into, from the state it was in. Cursing under her breath, Franky slammed it down and rushed to the walk-in office. The gate rattled behind her as she ransacked the desk, shifting loose paper about until she found the incident logbook.

She hastily flicked the pages to the current date and – _oh look, no fucking surprise,_ no report of the incident had been written, since none of these lazy fuckers seemed to give a damn that anything left unreported would come back to poke Franky like shit on a stick. She snatched the pen from the desk (the pen that you’d have to roll in the palms of your hands a few times to get the ink warm and the shitting thing doing what it was invented for), and began scribbling details as thoroughly as her mind could make them up because, in Vera’s words, when filling in an incident report _“you must be really anal about who, what, where, when and why”_ which, of course, had earned a backgrounded cackle from Boomer.

Obviously, Franky knew fuck all about the incident, though she recalled Sarah ranting about something at some point when she’d been too busy to pay mind to it. She shrugged, jotting down that the fucking thing had been playing up for a few days with a side note that some of the knives (that must be at least twenty years old) were getting blunt, too. She paused over the ‘Involved Parties’ segment thoughtfully and bit down on her lip. Since Booms and Sarah were on vegetable prep, they were, undoubtedly, the involved parties, but Franky just couldn’t bring herself to put Boomer in the shit again and contemplated for a moment longer before she happily decided on leaving that part blank. It wouldn’t be lagging if she did write names; surprisingly true to Vera’s word, the logbook worked more as a risk assessment, compiled with things that needed to be replaced before anyone lost a finger, or worse. It wasn’t about tossing people in the slot since the screws on duty had their eyes out for _those_ kinds of incidents. Besides, they’d have to be on fucking drugs to think any inmate would willingly write down on paper that they were responsible for something fucked up happening unless they had mental incapacities or some shit. Even still, Franky would feel uneasy dobbing Booms in when the woman hated her enough as it was. She could easily say she’d simply just found it like that – which she had, but it didn’t matter if you reached the mastery of compulsively lying, or swore down on every grave of everyone that ever mattered to you (even those that weren’t even dead yet, for fuck’s sake). In this place, no one cared. They thought what they knew and knew what they thought, no matter how opposite from the truth it may be.

When she looked back up, she almost flinched in her skin at the sight of Bea who was stood patiently on the opposite side of the walk-in. If Franky hadn’t vigorously taught herself to suppress fear as an emotion, she damn would have yelped probably.

“Fuck, what are you, a ghost?” Franky grumbled, wondering if her ears had been playing tricks on her. She’d never heard the redhead’s footsteps approach, she was sure of it.

Bea smacked her lips together – like always, she was to the point. Never wasting time, even if she had shedloads of it. “I believe you have something I want to collect,” Bea said.

“Oh, yeah.” Franky rolled her eyes. “Best be quick, count’s in ten minutes.”

Bea followed her into a tight-spaced storage closet and shut the door after herself. She watched the Franky as the brunette looted the shelves, and once she’d picked out what she was looking for, finally, she rotated to give Bea a condescending grin as she dangled the eyeshadow in front of her. “It’s a little ironic that none of us are allowed to smuggle shit in through the kitchen, except when _you_ need to. Should practice what you preach, Red.”

The Top Dog snatched the cosmetic from Franky’s grasp and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t let anyone smuggle _drugs_ through this way. Aside from that, I don’t give a fuck. It’s your kitchen.”

“Seems like a lot of hassle just for some fucking powder,” Franky continued to poke – the smugness evident in her tone.

“It’s for Maxine. I owed her a favour.”

“Course.”

They stood looking at each other momentarily before Bea scoffed and brushed past Franky towards the exit. “I believe we’re done here,” she said gravelly and pushed down the handle.

It jammed.

She pushed it down once again, just to ensure it wasn’t stiffer than she’d predicted and…Nothing.

Franky frowned at Bea, suppressing a smirk. “Top Dog can’t open a door?”

“No, it’s stuck!” she asserted and pushed down on the handle again, harder this time.

The chef sighed and uncrossed her arms, no longer finding it amusing. If she was late for count, that would be another fucking impediment to her parole hearing. “Move,” she instructed, nudging Bea out of the way. Out of the two of them, Franky had the most muscle and surely Bea wouldn’t have too big of an ego to realise that.

Franky pushed down forcibly but, _shit,_ jammed was fucking right. She widened her eyes and blew out her cheeks, then she tried again. Still nothing. “Tell you what…” she started, before squeezing the handle, taking a breath and shoulder-barging the door with unnecessary force. She gritted her teeth.

Bea scoffed and met Franky’s eyes with disapproval. She looked confused or perhaps annoyed with her. Franky cleared her throat.

“Did that help?”

“Yes.”

“Did that hurt?”

 _“Yes,”_ Franky grunted angrily.

Bea ignored her and moved to press her ear against the door, squinting to hear if she could make out anybody’s nearby footsteps. “Hello!?” she shouted, earning no reply. She slammed her hand against the door, exclaiming a “Fuck!” before she stood back, landing her narrow-eyed glare on Franky.

Was there something accusatory in the Top Dog’s look? Or maybe Franky was reading too much into it? The brunette bit down on a sarcastic retort, an old reflex that had served her poorly for longer than she could pinpoint.

“So, we’re stuck?” Franky commented, dry of ideas and weary. Bea could only respond with a defeated-like shift in her countenance. _Brilliant_.

With a surge of anger suddenly rising in her, Franky stuck her pointer finger out at the redhead. “This is gonna fuck up my parole, thanks to you!”

A sigh escaped Bea – one of those tired ones that expressed she just couldn’t be fucked – and she pushed past Franky. She must’ve taken a misstep between the countless boxes surrounding the floor, because without any warning, her footing was lost and she stumbled down, taking Franky with her. Boxes tumbled over and landed onto them with a thump as the whirring sensation of the fall clouded their minds.

The disorientated chef blinked her eyes open with a slight ache in her cranium. Once they’d adjusted, she recognised the nose mere millimetres away and the red mane of curly hair groaning atop of her. She was trapped in a closet with Bea fucking Smith over her. As if things couldn’t get any more frustratingly humiliating.

“Get off,” Franky struggled, shifting her weight to push herself up onto her hands. When the instruction fell on deaf ears, the brunette gave Bea a sharp nudge to the gut. “I said _get off_!” she shouted, hoping the pink shade that had _somehow_ managed to surface on her cheeks would be barely visible.

“I’m _trying!_ ” Bea hissed in a growl and eventually, steadily, moved backwards out of Franky’s personal space. Back onto her feet, Bea looked down to Franky with something like pity. She held her hand out, a peace offering, and Franky stared at in consideration until she accepted it with a sharp clasp and a firm squeeze. The chef was hefted to her feet by a strong arm which was soon distracted by a painful stinging sensation to the shiv gash on the redhead’s left side. Bea rolled up her teal shirt with a grimace and she was met with red that had inked its way through the shirt. She rolled it down with a huff and regarded Franky.

“A thanks would’ve been nice.”

“A thanks would’ve been nice for your little smuggling scheme,” Franky swung back, equally.

“Yeah, well, a thanks would’ve been nice after I saved your arse from Cindy-Lou and her crew.”

A sly glimmer of amusement crept into the jade of Franky’s eyes. “Touché,” she said and slid past the commander-in-chief to manoeuvre herself carefully onto a stack of boxes once she was assured they wouldn’t collapse under her weight. The Top Dog watched her indulgently and set her mind to calculating a solution. “You wanna get that sorted before it gets infected,” Franky commented whilst she adjusted herself more comfortably. “If it hasn’t already,” she added.

“That’s the least of my worries.”

 _“Attention compound. All women report to their units for the count.”_ The two looked to the ceiling as the announcer rang overhead.

“So, you’ve decided you’re just gonna sit there, then?”

Franky shrugged. “Door’s wedged. You tried it. Looks like we’ll have to wait it out,” she said tentatively. Unhappily.

Caught in a tight-netted stare, Bea swallowed down hard, finding her emotions capricious to the predicament she had succumbed to. Her dislike for confined spaces had never been spoken of and she would bite down on her tongue before confessing that to anyone – let alone to Franky. Deciding to busy herself, she swiftly moved her gaze to the single shelf and sifted between the boxes, ignoring Franky’s observant frown.

“Well, if you’re looking for a deck of cards, there isn’t gonna be any,” she said.

Bea pulled out a torch that blinked weakly once she switched the device on. She tutted and hopelessly smacked the side of it, obtaining futile results.

“Last time I checked, the lights were fine,” Franky mumbled, studying Bea with a speculative glance.

The redhead contemplated for a moment. She wasn’t prepared to give this devious hothead the satisfaction of knowing one of her inner foibles, but she didn’t have long to muster up something worthy of convincement in time. “Yeah, but what if there’s a cut?” She knew that didn’t cut it as soon as it left her lips. That and the scornful laugh that came from Franky.

“Claustrophobic, are ya?” When Bea held back a sigh, the brunette raised her brow in humour.

“Might be,” Bea stated in that low-key self-pitying tone. “So what? I’m the one actually focusing on getting us out of here, anyway.”

Franky couldn’t think of a witty comeback and instead changed the subject. After all, try as she might to showcase her dislike towards the redhead, picking at her like a scab wasn’t exactly going to get them anywhere. Besides, there was that silent integrity about Bea that Franky couldn’t really ignore – as much as she’d like to. In many ways, she actually was thankful towards her. Not that she’d say it. Hard as it was to suppress the snide, she still managed to succeed given the effort.

But the downside was always that tiny, sickening blossom of attraction Franky forcibly held down and thought she’d been able to ignore, yet here it was, that odd sensation forming a heat ball in her belly.

It made her feel quite sick and uneasy, really. She couldn’t blame Bea for feeling claustrophobic.

Her train of thought was broken as soon as she realised that Bea had been wittering on about some shit for the last minute or so. She swung her neck back in a slouch and groaned. “Hey, you haven’t still got that zipgun I got for you, do ya?” Franky interrupted, idly. She felt Bea’s eyes lift to her but continued to inspect the ceiling with her head hung back and her arms across the apron that was beginning to feel tight around her waist.

“Why?”

“Cause I’ve got a feeling you’re not gonna shut the fuck up, so I figured you could take us both out in one hit.” Okay – one last poke just because she couldn’t resist the temptation and her smile widened as she watched Bea cock her head in this tired, impatient manner. “You know what I’ve noticed, Red?” Franky said suddenly, in quiet intensity. She stood to Bea’s level and although the woman was slightly taller, she always managed to thrive in freezing her into an inescapable, glistening gaze.

“What’s that?” Bea asked, squaring her shoulders to tower over Franky as best she could.

“I feel like there’s always been some kind of tension between us since day one.”

The redhead realised she was holding her breath as taboo thoughts crept their way into her head. She knew what Franky was getting at – or at least, what she was hoping to get at. And she knew exactly how to play this, being no stranger to Franky’s (often misplaced) bravado.

“I’d say so,” Bea said and took a step closer to Franky so that her opponent was stood in her shadow.

For a moment, the closeness made the coil in the chef’s stomach twist with trepidation. The blood rushed in her ears as Bea leant in with an undistinguishable intent.

“Why’d you mention?” The redhead paused, their lips close enough to kiss. “Do you want to?”

Franky froze and tensed in wonderment. Her heart thumped hard in her chest from the dead-locked gaze Bea had tranced her in. Want to what, exactly? It didn’t fucking help that she felt herself sweat whilst Bea simply waited patiently for her combatant to mull the proposition over and figure out its implications with no guidance. Carefully, the chef’s tongue slipped out to dap her bottom lip as she used the moment to think about it.

“Do you?” She asked back, swerving around the question to play it carefully. Having lewd thoughts about Bea was shameful enough but to actually undergo that forbidden, concealed fantasy that Franky thought she’d packed away was a whole bird of another feather.

Though, she needn’t consider it long.

“I’d rather slit my own throat,” Bea crooned in a low, gruff voice before she sauntered away as best as she could through the stuffy, cluttered closet.

Stunned, Franky gave a snort and crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. She reacted as breezily as she could despite that mocking conscience of hers clamouring cockily in her head. As always, Bea had gotten the better of her. Maybe it was time for Franky to finally knock that chip off her shoulder.

Of course, she didn’t, as her stubbornness called, and she tightened her chest and thrust out her chin for the sake of integrity. Keeping her legs firmly on the high ground above being bashful was something she was practically a guru in if nothing else. “Nuh, don’t worry about it, Red. Kinda got my eyes elsewhere at the mo.”

“Yeah, I gathered that,” Bea said with a benign smile – a simple result of the dainty victory in throwing Franky off-guard. At the very most, she admired Franky’s poise and had grown to understand it. In this place, building a tough-girl alter-ego and diminishing any inch of visible weakness was customary. After all – Bea would know. She often wondered what the real Franky was like beneath that thick tatted skin. Perhaps one day she’d see the real side of her if she ruled out the fact that Franky would probably rather die than have anyone in this place denude her defences. Thinking of witnessing a “softer” Franky was like aiming for Mars before you’ve even reached the moon.

“Oh, did you?” the chef mocked – secretly alarmed at how Bea had caught on so easily. Fuck, had she really made it that obvious? It wasn’t like she had allowed a grin to plaster her face every time Bridget stepped foot in the room, or at least she’d let herself believe she hadn’t.

“Few of the girls have been talking.” Bea nodded in a weird cordial way that had Franky feeling conflicted. “So, you better watch your back, cause I’m not watching it for you.”

That wasn’t a taunt or a threat, Franky could easily tell from the longanimous tone. Still, a tight knot of apprehension rippled in her sternum. Bridget wasn’t a screw, but she could easily become a subject to the expenses of their own incurring. Shit, how had the rumours slipped past her without her even noticing? She pushed down a swallow and softened her eyes. A group session in the library was due tomorrow, she suddenly recalled. Maybe if she behaved more reservedly and started acting like these hand-holding, circle jerk pep talks were something she was forced to attend instead of sitting there all fatuous and dutiful, studying Bridget’s every gentle to swift move with fascination, it would put these dumb-fuck rumours to bed. Or at least shut up the person who was blabbing her mouth off like a jejune school kid.

“Why would you warn me?” Franky replied, smoothly.

Bea simply inhaled and raised a condescending brow. “Because I can’t be arsed with the headache if something goes down when the girls get bitter,” she said coolly, before ambling herself to sit by the door, cornered by a glimmering gaze of her adversary (if she could be bothered to think of Franky as that anymore). She was restless, beat down, and sick of having to look out for enemies on the prowl coming from any possible direction like a fucking spider. Franky was an excessive nuisance, but she wasn’t exactly a threat to anything anymore (unless she foolishly retreated to importing drugs again – which she wouldn’t, with her parole on the horizon).

“Fair enough,” Franky accepted, slightly speculatively.

“You moved on from Jodie then?”

Immediately, agitation flooded Franky’s bloodstream. Like she needed to be reminded of any more reasons why she should be basking in guilt. “Fuck did you bring her up for?” Just as she was warming to Bea’s company as well. The Top Dog looked down in some not-quite-apologetic manner. “We fucking failed her, y’know? We were meant to protect her, now she’s rotting away in psych,” Franky spat.

“Yeah, I know,” Bea said both truthfully and sadly. “I mishandled it. You think I don’t think about that?”

The chef wavered in thought for a moment until a light, half-hearted chuckle came from Bea.

“Wanna trade shoes?”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve already walked a mile in them. Don’t think they quite fit my feet. ‘Sides, you earned ‘em.”

Bea let out a premature sigh. “Yeah, well, if you want them back, you know where to come,” she said, deflated from defeat.

Franky frowned instantly upon hearing this. “Probably should be careful who you say that around, Red.”

She looked at Franky almost expectantly with low shoulders before clearing her throat. “Getting pretty crap at this, you know?”

The space between them seemed to be filled only by the competing sounds of shallow breaths and pumping hearts. It was funny how they always somehow tended to be in competition with each other, even in the smallest ways. Franky couldn’t exactly comprehend Bea’s sudden self-doubt, however. Through the cycle of abuse they’d both slogged through, Bea clearly channelled her inner vault of ever-growing anger to good use, whereas Franky, well, she was more driven to the boulevard of hate and revenge on either her deadbeat dad or psychotic birth giver. She purposefully pushed that red button, declined any so-called support systems, and tapped herself in the head until hot-red steam filled the space. And when that steam could barely contain itself no more…the catalyst erupted like a moth into a flame.

Granted, she knew next to little about Bea’s past; the pain the redhead yielded to was very apparent, though. Her mission to sacrifice all of life’s worth in retribution for her daughter had proven putrid to nil satisfactory for her mental wellbeing, despite the avengement probably being her greatest achievement. Surprising as it was upon hearing this, Franky finally realised she could sense the tenseness radiating from Bea’s body and wondered if it had been there since the day she’d lost the only thing that mattered to her.

“What are you on about?” Franky questioned. Bea was resilient, (mostly) morally balanced, and the prison, dare Franky admit it, needed someone like her to keep it under control. Not seeing rampant junkies flair out made a peaceful change from recent history and, fucking hell, if not Bea, then who else could take the throne? Cindy-Lou? Fat fucking chance. Maxine? As soon as never. It was a known fact that the queen of the hive had both admirers and followers alike – out of respect, fear or both. Not just from the hopeless dwellers in this dystopia but from beyond the walls, too. Some nutcase had sent Bea an arse-kissing love letter and signed herself as part of the ‘Red Right’ something, Franky couldn’t remember. Point was, even if the Top Dog’s conscience wasn’t exactly marble and her choices weren’t always prudent, she had a lot more to offer the women than Franky had ever had. Again – she’d keep that particular thought to herself. All her life, Franky had been looked at like some tempestuous two-bit criminal making her living from the world’s misery. What they didn’t know was that she usually sat back in her own sorrow behind a painted, forged smile with a secret desire to just be loved and understood. Boomer, Erica, Bridget and now Bea, she supposed, were the first women to ever see her with potential.

“I wasn’t there for Deb. She died because of my negligence. How am I supposed to back these women when I have to live with the fact that I put my own daughter’s life in jeopardy? And not just in this place,” Bea stressed, “but out there, too. Every day I tried to hide what Harry did to me and every day it got harder and harder to hide until I realised she was old enough to understand what was going on. She didn’t have to say a word; all I saw was a look of shame and fear in her eyes.”

The chef disapproved with a firm shake of her head. “Nah, you protected her from it.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough.”

“It was more than my dad should’ve done.”

It was hard to tell but Franky thought she saw Bea’s umber eyes grow large as her mien amended under the surface of tensity. The discussion of family affairs was usually off limits and certainly never addressed between these two unless either wanted a broken jaw. The Top Dog looked like she’d blabbed out more than she’d ever intended.

“And Ferguson’s on my back. And it’s hard to keep up with everyone’s fucking demands,” she said achingly back onto track, finding the back of her heels in a corner. Could this room be any fucking stuffier?

Offering her a benevolent smile, Franky stepped into Bea’s realm of discomfort, standing close enough to allow their knuckles to brush.

“What are you –” Bea started as she drew back when Franky wordlessly moved to clasp her hand. Her brows knitted in surprise and confusion and it was easy to see now, the touch conflicted her to the very core. It led Franky to wonder just how long she’d gone without the smallest form of intimacy.

“Chill, Red,” the chef prompted, her voice as soft as a thread of silk blowing in the breeze. She ducked her neck to an angle that she expected Bea to slowly repel from. “You’re fine.”

Bea shifted anxiously before surrendering her hand into Franky’s. “Well I won’t always be,” she mumbled, actively avoiding the chef’s eyes that she could feel lingering on her own.

Franky stubbornly pouted her lower lip. “You always this tense?” she asked, a fiery flare prominent in her tone.

The Top Dog shrugged, finally meeting Franky’s eyes under the light. “Suppose.”

“Guess it’s the claustrophobia, eh?”

 _Potentially_ , Bea supposed. That or the awkward, unaddressed elephant in the small room. They were both holding hands like little besties for reasons she couldn’t yet identify.

A moment passed, or two.

And then the redhead realised she’d been holding a breath in her throat for minutes when Franky leant into a newly tacit Bea.

When her eyes closed, her lips were sealed in a kiss that was a lot softer than could be expected.

It was slow, gentle and small and Bea felt everything strong about her resolve crumble and cripple at the alarming pace of her thumping heart.

Very soon, Franky broke away and stared at a very silted, perplexed and conflicted Bea before she rolled her eyes in humour and satisfaction. “Relax, Bea, it was just a kiss, not a prison proposal.” It wasn’t some grand romantic gesture, though Franky always felt she could have benefitted from a touch that wasn’t just numb, blind sex. She sighed in victory as she noticed the tenseness in Bea’s shoulders simmer – even if the baffled look on her face spoke millions of questions like the neurons in her brain had been reduced to pointless electricity.

* * *

In a brisk walk, Linda entered the kitchen with a talkie held to her mouth. “Just entering the kitchen now, Governor, no sight of them here, either.” Her finger released the button before she reattached the communication device to her belt. “Doyle! Smith!” she called, a slither of utter annoyance accompanying her voice.

“In here!” Franky’s muffled voice called back.

Miles’ neck twisted towards the walk-in and she landed her eyes on the door to a closet. “Fucking seriously?” she tutted.

“We’re stuck,” the chef confirmed, giving the door a shove from the inside.

“Smith in there, too, or has cat got her tongue?”

Franky snorted. “Could say that.”

The redhead blinked back into existence and cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’m here,” she said firmly as if she was attempting to reinsert some toughness into her chest.

“Err, Sierra 5 to Sierra 2, I’m down in the kitchen, I’ve found Smith and Doyle, but they’re both stuck in a supply closet, the door’s wedged, over.”

“I’m on my way,” Mister Jackson buzzed back.

Shortly, the man entered the work unit with a hustle in his step and a small frown on his face. “How’d it get stuck?” he questioned, giving the door a push.

“Fuck if I know. Probably did themselves,” Linda mumbled, raising a suggestive brow.

Will stared at her blankly for a second before he reverted his attention. “Okay, ladies, I’m gonna bust the door, alright?”

“Yeah, do us a favour, hurry it up,” Bea quipped and took a few steps back.

In a burst and a groan, the door was busted through and barely clinging to its hinges. Will pursed his lips and gave his arm a rub before he quickly evaluated the women. “You both okay?” The two nodded awkwardly in response.

“Right, come on. Fun’s over. Out now,” Linda piped up and motioned her head. Quickly, the inmates complied and walked in front of Miles and Jackson. “Cierra 5 to Cierra 6, me and Mister Jackson have got them. Taking them back to their unit now, over.”

“And what was the incident?” Ferguson’s demanding reply came through near instantly.

“Never knew you had it in you, Smith,” Smiles said quietly whilst Jackson answered the talkie.

The Top Dog scoffed in revolt. “This place has a one-track mind; we weren’t up to anything,” Bea insisted in a whisper, offended at the notion.

“Well, what were you doing inside a small room together, then?”

Bea curled her lips as she flashed the cosmetic from the sleeve of her teal jacket for Smiles to catch a glimpse of in the corner of her eye. “Collecting something for Maxine.”

Linda smirked speculatively. “I’m sure the governor will believe that.”

“Oh, she will, cause you’re gonna tell her you were witness to the door getting jammed on us.”

“Oh, am I now?” Linda replied, rising to the challenge. “Even if I somehow wanted to put myself in the shit for you both, what were _you_ doing in the kitchen, when your work unit’s laundry?”

Franky cast a glance at Bea. “Like I said. I was picking something up Maxine had left at the end of her shift.”

Linda choked back a snigger. “What’s in it for me?”

The Top Dog hummed with her eyes forward. “I’m sure an extra fund in your gambling balance sounds appealing.”

“How much are we talking?” she asked, gruffly. “Same as last time?” She noticed Bea nodding in her vision field. In her head, Smiles did a quick arithmetic equation. “Fine. You’re on.”

“Oh, and Red,” Franky interjected from the sideline. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell if you don’t,” she winked, as a gleaming grin spread across her face.


End file.
